The US is not considering giving Ukraine nuclear arms, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has said. Last month, a New York Times report claimed that some officials in Washington wanted to arm Kiev with atomic weapons.
Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Sullivan said that the idea is “not under consideration.”
“What we are doing is surging various conventional capacities to Ukraine so that they can effectively defend themselves and take the fight to the Russians, not [giving them] nuclear capability,” he told the network.
Less than two weeks earlier, the New York Times claimed that President Joe Biden “could allow Ukraine to have nuclear weapons again, as it did before the fall of the Soviet Union,” citing anonymous US officials.
The newspaper described the prospect of a nuclear-armed Ukraine as “an instant and enormous deterrent” to Russia, but noted that “such a step would be complicated and have serious implications.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev spelled out some of these implications, warning that “transferring such weapons may be considered as the launch of an attack against our country” in accordance with Russia’s recently revised nuclear doctrine.
Russia’s nuclear doctrine allows for the use of atomic weapons in the event of a first nuclear strike on its territory or infrastructure, or if Russia’s sovereignty or territorial integrity is critically threatened by either nuclear or conventional weapons. The most recent iteration of the doctrine also allows Moscow to treat an attack by a non-nuclear state backed by a nuclear power as equivalent to direct nuclear aggression.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed the report as the “absolutely irresponsible deliberations by people who probably have a poor understanding…of reality, and who do not feel a shred of responsibility” for the consequences of their proposals.
Ukraine was left with around 1,700 nuclear warheads after the collapse of the Soviet Union. While this stockpile technically made Ukraine the world’s third-largest nuclear power, the weapons themselves remained under the operational control of Russia, and were surrendered under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. This agreement involved the US, UK, and Russia providing security assurances to Kiev in return for the removal of the arms.
Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky has expressed regret that his country surrendered its nuclear weapons, declaring in 2022 that Kiev had “every right” to reverse the decision. Back in October, he declared that has only two options to ensure its security: join NATO or obtain nuclear weapons. He later clarified that he considers NATO membership his only choice.
A month later, however, a Ukrainian military think tank called on Zelensky to raid the country’s nuclear reactors for the plutonium needed to craft a “simple atomic bomb,” like the one the US dropped on Nagasaki during the Second World War. The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry stated that Kiev would not heed this advice, and does not intend to acquire nuclear weapons.